Catholic Schools

The annual Luncheon in Celebration of Excellence in Catholic Education brought together more than 350 pastors, school administrators and community leaders to celebrate the importance of Catholic schools in the community. The event took place Feb. 1 at the Gillespie Conference Center at the Hilton Garden Inn, sponsored by Quality Dining Inc. The Most Rev. Kevin C. Rhoades, bishop of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, served as the luncheon's keynote speaker. Educators from 18 schools in the South Bend area received the Light of Learning award in recognition of their positive impact on Catholic education: [square]

SOUTH BEND -- With school choice options spreading in Indiana and across the country, Catholic educators should be ready to make the case for why public funding of Catholic schools is good for children and society, according to University of Notre Dame law professor Nicole Stelle Garnett. "It's important to understand the law as Catholic school advocates so we can make the case that our schools and our kids deserve to participate equally in our society's goal of educating the public," Garnett said Friday during a leadership conference at Notre Dame for Catholic school educators.

MISHAWAKA — Three Catholic grade schools in Mishawaka will be consolidated next fall into one interparochial school on three campuses, Catholic Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades announced Wednesday afternoon. The new entity will be called Mishawaka Catholic School. Students in K-2 will attend the St. Bavo School campus, students in grades 3 to 5 will attend the St. Joseph School campus, and students in grades 6 to 8 will attend the St. Monica School campus. "The consolidation of resources will benefit the Catholic school program in Mishawaka, providing more academic opportunities for middle school students and a high-quality early childhood education program.

MISHAWAKA -- Three Catholic grade schools here will be consolidated next fall into one interparochial school on three campuses, Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades announced Wednesday. The new entity will be called Mishawaka Catholic School. Students in K-2 will attend the St. Bavo School campus, students in grades 3 to 5 will attend the St. Joseph School campus and students in grades 6 to 8 will attend the St. Monica School campus. "The consolidation of resources will benefit the Catholic school program in Mishawaka, providing more academic opportunities for middle-school students and a high-quality early childhood education program.

A handful of local Catholic schools have to adapt their teaching strategies after the schools received C's and D's in Indiana's new A-F grading system. At least two principals said their grades dropped from the prior two years be-cause the state just started using new methods to come up with the grades. The state's grades became official Wednesday. St. Adalbert School in South Bend had to make quick changes as its grade of D came well into the semester, said Andrew Currier, who's been the principal for three months.

A full-page advertisement appeared in St. Jude Catholic Parish's bulletin recently, pitching a $300 incentive bonus that's available for referring students to St. Jude School in South Bend. The ad - and its potential implications - caused some discord at South Bend Community School Corp.'s meeting Monday evening when Bill Sniadecki, the board's vice president, said he feels such an incentive policy is unethical for a school that now accepts state vouchers. “That (state tuition)

White people can't jump. Overweight people don't exercise. Catholic schools recruit. These are stereotypes, and cannot be proven true. Advocates of the 1.5 multiplier, which would force Catholic schools to compete against bigger schools, consider recruiting the cause of Catholic school success in the Indiana 3-A state football tournament. Before debating the punishment for Catholic schools recruiting, proof should exist that all Catholic schools recruit. Without such proof, how can people even consider punishing all Catholic schools?

CHESTER E. FINN Jr. and ANDY SMARICK Special to The Washington Post | April 23, 2009

The positive findings in the Education Department's recent evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program provide more evidence that high-quality private and parochial schools can have invaluable benefits for low-income, minority students. Tragically, however, Catholic schools, long the heart and soul of urban private education, are disappearing. Last year, seven Catholic schools in Washington were converted into charters, and the Dioceses of Brooklyn and Cleveland are considering another round of school closures.

SOUTH BEND - The Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, senior director of the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program in the University of Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education, recently received the C. Albert Koob Merit Award from the National Catholic Educational Association. The award honors an individual who has made extraordinary contributions to Catholic education in the United States. The association presented the award to Nuzzi during its annual convention in Houston. Later this year, Nuzzi will lead a new ACE initiative assisting Catholic schools as they assess and renew their Catholic identity in the spirit of the New Evangelization.

Oh, how well I remember Catholic Schools week. How could I forget the Burger King booklets? Again this year, the schools have been doing some fun and serious events during the week. Last week I visited some of the Mishawaka and South Bend Catholic schools and found out this year's theme: “Catholic Schools Raise the Standards.” St. Bavo's campus did all kinds of fun things related to the number 100. It was very cute and fun to watch. Vikki Wojcik is principal of Mishawaka Catholic, which consists of three campuses - St. Joseph's, St. Monica's and St. Bavo's.

One more year before the big move. Having announced last September a future affiliation with the Atlantic Coast Conference, Notre Dame will remain in the Big East through the 2013-14 college basketball season before heading south for 2014-15. Asked during his weekly teleconference Thursday morning about the Irish men's basketball scheduling plans for next season, coach Mike Brey indicated that a decision was made Friday by the school to play in the Big East for one more year.

SOUTH BEND - Dozens of people attended an event today to honor area Catholic educators. The Most Rev. Kevin Rhoades, bishop of the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese, was the keynote speaker at the annual Luncheon in Celebration of Excellence in Catholic Education. This year's Light of Learning recipients for the South Bend area were also announced. They are: - Tara Carey from Christ the King - Debra McDowell from Corpus Christi - JoAnn Goepfrich from Holy Cross - Leslie Brenner from Holy Family - Michelle McKinney from Our Lady of Hungary - Leticia Probst from St. Adalbert - Maureen Alexander from St. Anthony de Padua - Karen Bogol from St. John the Baptist - Pamela Regnery from St. Joseph - Diane Verleye from St. Jude.

Now that the election silly season is over, can we get to work on the economy? Soon we'll be hearing more about tax cuts for the "job creators. " Those speakers are usually referring to large corporations and the wealthy, who are already sitting on piles of money they won't invest because customers -- the 99 percent -- don't have enough income to buy their products. If low taxes on the rich spurred economic growth, we'd be booming right now because taxes paid by them have been the lowest in our lifetimes.

Recently, several of my neighbors on Belmont Avenue, along with my wife and I, signed up for the 2012 sidewalk and curb program sponsored by the city of South Bend. This program provided a great opportunity to update and improve the safety and appearance of our block. I want to take this opportunity to thank the city for providing this service. The crew that performed the work was excellent. They tore out the old walks, poured the new walks, leveled the tree lawn and always paid great attention to detail.

It's a very tough situation right now at Boston College. They've always been pretty strong, but I think their recruiting has gone down the last couple of years and it's showing now. They don't have quite the talent they've had over the last decade. It's cyclical. Their problem is that New England has been drastically bad talent-wise the last few years. The talent has never been great there, but it's been pretty good. There hasn't been much talent at all in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont don't produce a lot. Boston College has to go into New Jersey, but Rutgers has been doing OK. And then Syracuse with its new staff has been doing well in New York.

A handful of local Catholic schools have to adapt their teaching strategies after the schools received C's and D's in Indiana's new A-F grading system. At least two principals said their grades dropped from the prior two years be-cause the state just started using new methods to come up with the grades. The state's grades became official Wednesday. St. Adalbert School in South Bend had to make quick changes as its grade of D came well into the semester, said Andrew Currier, who's been the principal for three months.

Principal Vikki Wojcik said she can't tell between the kids at Mishawaka Catholic School who came in on the state's new voucher program and those who didn't. They aren't treated any differently. That, she said, goes for new students who didn't have vouchers and who transferred from other Catholic or public schools and towns. But this spring's ISTEP results, which the Indiana Department of Education released today, do give one way to monitor the effect of the vouchers.

It is all and good to have a ban on fireworks during this drought, but the ban should be expanded to the stores and outlets that are selling them. Yes, the ban will hurt businesses that sell only fireworks and that is sad, but we have to look at the greater good of not having someone's house burned down, loss of lives and wildfires as in Colorado and New Mexico. The megastores such as Wal-Mart, Target, etc., really won't have their profits hurt if they pull all the fireworks items off their shelves.